PREFACE. 



Incredible as it may seem, in these days of literary research, the 

 EARLIEST PUBLISHED BOOK, written by an American Botanist 

 and devoted exclusively to American Botany, Horticulture and 

 Floriculture, has been either purposely ignored or entirely over- 

 looked by scientists, historians and bibliographers. 



Dr. William Darlington, in his fascinating Memorials of John 

 Bartram and Humphry Marshall, says of Marshall's "Arbustrum 

 Americanum" : "This is believed to be the first strictly American 

 botanical work that is to say, the first treatise on American plants 

 written by a native American and printed in this country." 



But the Catalogue of William Young, Jr., herewith reprinted, 

 while not originally printed in America, is, in other respects, in the 

 same category with the Arbustrum, and antedates the latter by two 

 years. It is interesting to note that Marshall knew of Young'8 

 Catalogue, and his reference to it on page 48 of the Arbustrum is 

 the only one I have been able to find in all literature. Marshall, 

 referring to the shrub "Fothergilla Gardeni" says : "This, in some 

 late Catalogues, has been called Youngsonia, in honour of William 

 Young, Botanist, of Pennsylvania; but by Dr. Linnaeus, Fothergilla, 

 in honour of the late Dr. Fothergill, of London. It was first sent 

 to Europe, from Carolina by John Bartram, to his friend P. Collin- 

 son by the title of Gardenia." The reader is referred to top of page 

 54 of this reprint for Young's version of this generic name, there 

 claiming to have sent Dr. Fothergill a specimen in 1769, which was 

 forwarded to Linnaeus. Dr. Alex. Garden of Charleston, however, 

 had previously sent it to Linnaeus in 1765, as noted by Sir J. E. 

 Smith, under Garden's letter to Linnaeus, dated May 18th of that 

 year.* 



The copy of William Young's Catalogue which forms the basis 

 of this Reprint, first came to the editor's notice while looking over 

 a price-list of old books, issued in August, 1915, by a dealer in Scot- 

 land. 



It was obscurely listed as a sort of supplement or afterthought to 

 the description of a copy of Marshall's Arbustrum Americanum, with 

 which it had been rebound about 100 years ago. Contrary to my 

 usual experience in ordering rare Americana from foreign Catalogues, 

 I fortunately secured this item. It was in an old, half-calf binding, 

 Young's Catalogue at the end, with autograph on title and marginal 

 annotations in ink of John Barclay, who was no doubt the original 



*Smith, J. E. Correspondence of Linnaeus and other Naturalists. London, 1821, 

 Vol. I, p. 319. 



